Stonechats in the typhoon

An early typhoon just passed by Hokkaido................


This scuppered our camping plans a bit. We were planning a 3 day trip but had to cut it short and we rented a bungalow for 1 night in Oshamanbe instead of camping 2 nights at Lake Toya.

The weather was windy and grey most of the time. The Siberian Stonechats were feeding babies in their nests in the grasslands near Yakumo.............

These are all males.

This is usually an abundant summer visitor to Hokkaido but this year numbers seem well down (although there are still plenty in some places)...............

Otherwise Yakumo was a bit quiet. Several Osprey were fishing at the rivermouth however..............